Cultural, ethical, and spiritual competencies of health care providers responding to a catastrophic event

Health care providers responding to the call of duty during catastrophic events are expected to provide culturally, ethically, and spiritually competent care to disaster victims. Health care providers have many resources available to guide decision making and the provision of care during disasters. Familiarization with these resources is essential to the provision of efficient and effective care under chaotic conditions. Health care providers function in many roles, and the integration of local efforts with teams of professionals who have specialized disaster response training from international agencies is the most appropriate approach to providing ethically sound, spiritually sensitive, and culturally appropriate care to disaster victims. Disaster response interventions should be guided by ethnocultural beliefs, and local networks should be consulted to manage ethnic sentiments. Ethical decision making should be based on sound principles, and ethical dilemmas should be identified and resolved through appropriate processes. Human beings are spiritual beings and everything possible should be done to ease spiritual suffering during a disaster.